It’s getting hard to keep up with all the young adult
fiction film adaptations these days. It feels like a big ball of Hunger/Divergent/Maze quadrilogies, and
it doesn’t seem to be going away. Maze
Runner: The Scorch Trials is the second adaptation from James Dashner’s
series of novels. Does it distinguish itself among so many other similar
movies?

Dylan O’Brien returns as Thomas, the young man who led a
group of out of a secret testing facility called “The Glade” in the first
installment. Thomas and his friends are taken to a facility where they are
promised asylum by a shifty, turtleneck-wearing WICKED official named Mr.
Janson (Aiden Gillan), who works for WICKED leader Ava (Patricia Clarkson).
WICKED is the force behind the Maze program that seems to be grooming young
people for something sinister. Thomas also discovers that there were many other
mazes and refugees who escaped, just like him. With the help of Aris (Jacob
Lofland), Thomas finds out that WICKED plans to harvest biological compounds
from the maze survivors in order to create vaccine that will cure the world’s
zombie virus. Thomas decides he won’t let this happen, and he hatches a plan to
escape (again).

Joining Thomas are his love interest Teresa (Kaya
Scoledario), Newt (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), Minho (Ki Hong Lee), Frypan (Dexter
Darden) and Winston (Alexander Flores). Once the kids escape the WICKED
compound, the go out in search of the “Right Arm” vigilante group that opposes
WICKED. Along the way, they encounter zombies, traitors and WICKED forces out
to get them back. They eventually find Jorge (Giancarlo Esposito) and his
adopted daughter Brenda (Rosa Salazar) who help they escapees get to the Right
Arm leaders (Barry Pepper and Lili Taylor) hiding in the mountains. But there’s
a traitor among the band, and WICKED soon comes calling, setting off a battle.

Maze Runner: The
Scorch Trials is definitely a step above its predecessor, with much more
action, drama and visual effects. The pacing is much more linear than the
cryptic Maze Runner, too. Scorch Trials also has a little more
star power, with veteran actors like Pepper, Esposito and Taylor on board.

The trouble with Scorch
Trials is its source material, which draws from all the same clichés of
teens caught in a post-apocalyptic world. These formulaic plot holes are beginning
to get lost in the YA minutiae. For example, our protagonists are always
“finding” exactly what they need in their dystopian landscape, especially
hard-to-find items like flashlights (complete with fully-charged batteries),
vehicles (with plenty of gas), weapons (with plenty of ammo) and other
implements that probably wouldn’t exist without a fully thriving global economy
(not likely in the wake of a zombie apocalypse).

Still, if you can look past these nitpicky shortcomings, Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials is
sufficient enough for a few thrills and action, and might be pleasant for fans
of the novels.